Foolish regatta returns Saturday

A past winner of Newport Life Magazine’s best regatta award will return this weekend after the 2020 edition was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Fools’ Rules Regatta will set sail Saturday at the East Ferry waterfront overlooking the Newport Pell Bridge. The quirky tradition, which has a rain date of Aug. 15, tasks participants with constructing seagoing vessels using objects not intended for their seaworthiness. Sailors can work to perfect their design beforehand, but it must be re-assembled on the beach on the morning of the event. That portion of the 43rd annual regatta will begin at 9 a.m., and the races will set sail two hours later.

Greg Hunter, who has been “chief fool,” or emcee, since 2019, is looking forward to the return.

“The best part for me is the excitement and the simultaneous chaos of building the boats, but also the spectator reaction,” he said. “When you look out and there’s hundreds of people there, and everything from the questions to the smiles to the laughter. That, to me, is so much fun.”

Something a bit differentWith the possibility of another COVID-19 outbreak looming, the town council approved a conditional permit for the event that is sponsored by the Jamestown Yacht Club. As of Wednesday morning, Gov. Dan McKee did not reinstate any mask mandates or crowd limits.

“The town approved it with the understanding that if COVID ruins it, so be it,” Hunter said.

Because registration is not required before race day, Hunter will not know how many people will participate in the free event until they arrive at the beach. There are five classes in which sailors can enter their crafts, and these classes differ in capacity. Classes one through four are for boats with crews of one to four passengers, respectively, while the fifth class has unlimited capacity limits. The Jamestown Rotary Club will return to the regatta with their fried dough wagon.

The course is about 500 yards long, and boats in each class compete to see whether they can complete that distance ahead of the fleet — or sink and swim. All boats must be made with items other than nautical or boat parts, and must be propelled only by the wind. For those new to the event, Hunter said some of the most popular boat-building materials throughout the years include plastic barrels, sails made from tablecloths and bedsheets, parachutes and toilet seats.Aside from first-, second- and third-place prizes in each class, there also are three special awards given out annually. The worst example of naval architecture is given to the boat, as the name of the award indicates, that can’t quite sail. The most ingenious design award, named after the regatta’s founder, Karl Smith, is given to the entry with the best design. The Frank Newman judges’ award, named after a former president of the University of Rhode Island who was a regular participant, is given to the entry with the best overall theme.

“What we’d like to see is something a bit different, and something that we’ve never seen in the past, if possible, when it comes to the creative side,” Hunter said.

When the regatta was canceled last year due to the pandemic, Hunter said he expected the next edition to feature crafts related to the coronavirus. While he has yet to hear of anyone designing one, he still thinks there will be a few entries with the virus as a theme.

“I absolutely expect to see something along that line,” he said. “I’m sure there will be something that will come along that way.”

Back to the drawing board

Among this year’s participants is Philip Haun, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and A-10 pilot who has lived in Jamestown since 2009. He is the dean of academics at the Naval War College in Newport. Haun first attended the Fools’ Rules as a spectator in 2011, and competed for the first time in 2013.

“I thought it was a great event,” he said. “I typically build a boat every year if I can.”

That year, Haun and his daughter, Sadie, built a pontoon boat that finished in the middle of the pack. His family entered another pontoon called “Schadenfreude” in 2014 and won first prize in class three.

Following a fruitless daughter-dad doublehanded race in 2016 onboard “Haun-a-luau,” which was “an unfortunate boat” according to dad, Sadie was awarded third prize in the singlehanded class for her umbrella boat called “The Tippie” in 2017.

Haun and his daughter brought separate entries to the 2018 race, and Sadie won the singlehanded race while capturing the Smith award for her boat “Release the Quackin,” a canoe built out of PVC pipe with two inflatable rubber ducks as outriggers. Phil and his friend, Adrian Schuettke, finished third in the two-person boat for their outrigger design called “Snail Boat.” In 2019, Phil’s “Dragon” entry, which had a vertical butterfly-style design, collapsed before it reached the starting line, but he did win the Smith award, which means the Haun family has built the most ingenious design in the past two editions.

“The wind was horrible that year,” he said about the 2019 race. “It was blowing out from the due west, so there was absolutely no tailwind. Only the one boat that could sail on a reach actually did well.”

Haun said he is inspired by other entries from the previous years for his boats, and his pontoon and outrigger designs were created after he saw the success of similar crafts.

“We look to see what is there, and think about it,” he said. “Also, you get inspired by whatever failure you had the year before. I’m not going to have the same thing happen twice.”

During the pandemic, Haun has been designing his entry for this year’s regatta. He and Sadie will compete together in a pontoon catamaran built from wood, foam insulation, and black polyurethane in the doublehanded class. In response to their performance in 2019, this year’s design will have a daggerboard tarp sail Haun hopes will fare better if there is another crosswind.

“This boat was done last summer and it’s just been sitting in my basement ready to go,” he said. “I took it out a couple weeks ago to put some fine touches on it.”

Haun said he is most looking forward to this year’s regatta because his daughter will be traveling from Washington, D.C., for the event. Schuettke also will be at the beach to help them stabilize their craft.

“It’s just fun,” he said. “I look forward to the crowds and people coming up with their kids, asking questions and thinking about how they’re going to do theirs.”